Last week, on Wednesday April 16, the Illinois Tech Student Government Association (SGA) held its annual executive board elections. Polls opened at 9 a.m. with an email sent to the entire student body, and closed later that same evening. Up for vote were the following executive positions: President, Executive Vice President, Finance Board Chair, Associate Vice President (AVP) of Campus Life, AVP of Research Affairs, AVP of Academic Affairs, AVP of DEI, AVP of Residence Life, and AVP of Engagement. Election results were presented publicly in the McCormick Tribune Campus Center (MTCC), which shall be the focus of this remaining article.
During last year’s SGA executive elections, I commented on the prevalence of non-voting and abstentions within the voting results. Approximately 12 percent of the student body voted in last year’s executive elections, and with an abstention rate of approximately 30 percent on average, only eight percent of the student body voted for a candidate last year. This year, of the 8838 students in attendance (according to student demographics), only 376 students voted. Before subtracting abstentions, that is a dismal voter participation of 4.3 percent. After subtracting abstentions, which were around 25 percent for each position except for president, that left approximately 283 students voting for candidates, or about 3.2 percent voter participation down ballot.
To say these results are a poor reflection of the outreach and presence of Student Government on campus would be a severe understatement. The success of democracies is necessitated by the participation of their constituents. Without it, the goal of accountably representing constituencies becomes impossible. When an election could be won or lost by the participation of a few well-sized friend groups, elections are no longer a measure of competency. Germany’s most recent federal election, held this year on February 23, saw a voter turnout of 82.5 percent according to official sources. The United States trails behind other modern democracies, with a voter turnout of 64.1 percent in the 2024 presidential election, according to Wikipedia. Critics often cite poor voter enthusiasm and a lack of options for America’s poor voter turnout.
The candidate with the most votes in the 2025 SGA executive elections was incoming AVP of Research Affairs Gabriela Escobedo, with 311 votes, 3.52 percent of the student body. On the other end of the spectrum is the incoming AVP of Academic Affairs Sai Ayush, with 161 votes, a little more than 1.8 percent of the student body. Not far behind is the incoming President Yaline Cano, with approximately 198 votes or 2.2 percent of the student body. No member of the incoming SGA executive board has been elected with more than 3.52 percent of the student body’s votes.
Analyzing the elections from a nomination and competition framework, SGA continues to struggle. Three executive positions — Finance Board Chair, AVP of Residence Life, and AVP of Engagement — had not a single nominee run in the elections, meaning the incoming executive board will be starting with only six of its nine offices filled. Of these six offices, three of them — Executive Vice President, AVP of Campus Life, and AVP of Research Affairs — ran unopposed, meaning the student body had no other choice but to elect them. Of the remaining three offices, two of these — AVP of Academic Affairs and AVP of DEI — had only two candidates running, certainly better than unopposed but hardly a selection that is representative of the student body. The office of President had three candidates in running. I leave the interpretation of this as an exercise to the reader.
One minor improvement over last year’s election is the decline of abstain’s vote share with respect to the total ballots submitted. Last year, if abstain were a candidate, it would have won three of the offices that had candidates running. This year, submitted abstain votes won none of the offices which had candidates running. This is likely due to the decrease in competitiveness in this year’s election, as abstain’s victories in 2024 were in races with multiple candidates running. However, a victory is a victory, no matter how small or relative it is.
I want to make it clear that I personally believe the majority of the blame for this awful showing in the elections does not lie with the candidates themselves nor the students. Though I certainly believe the candidates could have done a better job advertising themselves and putting themselves out there, I believe the real culprit behind all of this is the current Student Government Executive Board. The last two years have seen a dramatic withdrawal of engagement from the Student Government Association, spearheaded by outgoing President Rezwan Rifat and Executive Vice President Derrick Hill. This is most measurable in the complete shutdown of the SGA public Discord one year ago, and an issue that I wrote about much more extensively in last week’s issue.
It is of little fault of the candidates themselves that they must inherit and operate in a system which has been so thoroughly and intentionally undermined by its leaders. Having attended this year’s “candidate forums,” SGA’s replacement for the debates that TechNews once operated, I reserve some cautious optimism for the incoming executive board. The incoming Executive Vice President and President both presented strong focuses on opening SGA back up to the students. This previous year, punctuated by this executive election, is evidence that the incoming executive board has their work cut out for them. But with hard work and determination, the only way to go from rock bottom is up.